


Personal Notes (25) Mirrors

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [25]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, M/M, a bit of smut and porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 16:45:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1751588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil wants to write, Carlos has other ideas. Spoilers for "Cassette".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Notes (25) Mirrors

Cecil thought that our accidental collaboration on the science section of his show was a success. I disagreed because the “science” he added last time appeared to be mostly absent, misapplied or twisted. However, he convinced me that he should write material in my company again. I put up only the briefest, token resistance to this idea. After all, I want to spend more time with him. I like watching him work. His face charts his progress: studious and concentrating one minute, scowling the next as he rips out a page, crumples it and drops it on the floor, grinning giggly when he thinks up something funny. I went to his apartment after I finished in the lab with some falafel and salad. We ate then Cecil settled down to write and I lounged on the sofa to pretend to read.

Cecil asked me about my old research. He has taken my notebooks and hidden them and at my request hasn’t told me where they are. I told him a little about time rifts and anomalies and about how time can appear stretched when an object travels close to the speed of light. I said nothing directly about the research I was involved in two years ago because the only safe place to talk is out in the open. He asked about what kind of time travel technologies might exist now. I said I didn’t know, mine didn’t work, I joked that it would probably be alien or something so I bet it would be locked up. He seemed happy with this and I continued to watch him write, his face wearing a satisfied smirk. I did not mention the correction to my mathematics that the Faceless old woman who secretly lives in my apartment had made. 

After a while Cecil's scowl resumed and the paper ball collection grew at an alarming rate. He looked out of the window. It was a clear night and the moon was visible. He asked if the moon’s surface ever changed. I told him a bit about craters, asteroid collisions, orbits and techniques in modern observational astronomy then asked if he would like to go out with me to the darkness of the sand wastes later to look at the moon through my telescope. He stared at me, jaw gaping, then recovered himself. He leapt up, held my face so that I could not avert my gaze and made me promise never to mention my telescope ever again. Although he wouldn’t say the word “telescope”, just hissed at me never to mention “the T word”. I kissed him and said I was sorry to cause him concern. He rolled those beautiful eyes and said something about me being a danger to myself and others.

I held him for a few moments but he was not in the mood to enlighten me as to why the T word was dangerous. He kissed my forehead, detached himself from my embrace and sat down again to write. I made him some coffee then went back to my book ( _The Call of Cthulhu_ hidden inside the dust-jacket of a biography of Johnny Weissmuller) but mostly peered over the top of it so that I could study Cecil. 

He said something about numbers being strange, the same numbers being used for both counting and for putting things in order. I explained about cardinal numbers being the sort you use for counting and ordinal numbers being for listing in order. One, two, three are cardinal, I said, and first, second, third are ordinal. He looked at me with an expression that I am only just beginning to recognise as meaning _Are you making this shit up?_ When I heard the resulting “children’s fun fact science corner” I laughed at the joke written just for me. 

Inevitably, I got bored and started to distract Cecil from his work. He refused to let me see or hear any of his material in advance, saying it would be more effective if I heard it first over the radio. Cecil had been working for a couple of hours. I started off by making it obvious that I was looking at him over my book then quickly averting my gaze back to the page in front of me when he caught my eyes on him. After the fourth or fifth time, he put his non-pen down and stared back. 

“I have to write tonight,” he said, “I’m recording parts of my show in the morning and I need to finish this.” 

I apologised for distracting him again and he went back to work. I got up to clear away the discarded paper from around his feet then sat on the floor close to Cecil’s chair. I considered a demonstration of projectile motion but decided against it in case being bombarded with paper balls annoyed him even more. Instead I removed his shoes, picked up one of his feet and massaged the sole. He liked that. I could tell by the noises he made. I continued kneading his plantar fascia, manipulating his metatarsals and finished by kissing his toes one by one. He really liked that. I took his other foot and gave it the same treatment. By the time I got round to his toes, Cecil was leaning back in his seat with his eyes half closed and a relaxed smile. He said the rest of his work could maybe wait and asked did I know how to make the rest of him feel as relaxed as his feet now did. 

I got up from the floor, took both of Cecil's hands and led him to the bedroom. There I removed his clothing and most of mine. In a reversal of one of my fantasies, I told him to lie prone, straddled him and massaged his back and shoulders as he made little appreciative noises in response to the long stroking movements and sucked in breaths when I found tight spots in his muscles and worked deeper. I thumbed the muscles on each side of his spine from his lumbar to cervical region, working beside each vertebra with little circular motions, then kissed my way back down. He flipped over, tipping me off so that I landed in a heap beside him with our legs entwined. I untangled myself and leaned over to kiss him lightly then drew back a little. He raised himself so that our lips met again, harder, and he pulled me down on top of him. We lay kissing, stroking and moving slowly against each other until it was clear that we both wanted more. 

Cecil rummaged in the bedside drawer then helped me out of my shorts. We lay in each other's arms, kissing deeper and touching, aroused and lost in anticipation. He wriggled down, teasing his way down my body with tongue and teeth. Before he reached my erection I said wait, and started to turn around so that I could do the same to him but he stopped me, said he had something else in mind tonight. He played his tongue over my testicles then up and down the shaft of my penis, making me whimper. He carefully unrolled a condom onto me, coated it and pulled me over onto my side, grinding backwards onto me. I pushed him over onto his front, lay on top and rubbed against his cleft, transferring the slick fluid. I knelt with my knees between his thighs, one hand with probing fingers to make him relax and the other stroking over his beautiful buttocks then guiding him to raise his hips a little. When he was ready, I pushed in gently before holding him firmly and rolling us both onto our sides. I held on to his hips as we rocked against each other, slow and gentle then building up. He guided my hand to his penis. I stroked in rhythm with our movement. I rested my head against the back of his shoulder, breathing heavily, deliriously close to orgasm for as long as I could stand it. He came, breathing out my name and his muscle spasms tipped me over the edge. I panted hard in time with my own orgasm. We lay still, recovering.

I saw that I had bitten Cecil and left a mark. I felt guilty and just a little pleased that I had marked him as mine. I didn't tell him, he has no mirrors so will probably not notice it. We slept naked and touching. 

I got up first this morning. To save time we showered separately. I put my shirt on, made coffee and took a mug through to Cecil just as he opened the bedroom door. Hot coffee went all over my shirt, soaking through and scalding my skin. Cecil let out a little scream, I emitted a louder one. He helped me out of my shirt quickly, losing a couple of buttons in the process, and pushed me through to the shower, turning it on cold. I stood there until the stinging pain subsided. 

Cecil handed me a white shirt. "Try this on." I did. I could just get it on but as it fitted beautifully on Cecil, it was too narrow for me. “There must be something in here that will fit you.” Cecil rummaged around in the back of his wardrobe, almost disappearing. I wanted to make a joke about finding snow and a lamp-post but doubted he would know what I was talking about. He emerged with a shirt that was not my preferred red check flannel but would at least button. The shirt was on top of a cardboard box. “I don’t remember this,” he said and looked inside. There were a few cassette tapes labelled as radio show demos from when Cecil was a teenager. “I certainly don’t remember making these; I was always going to be a radio presenter. There was even a prophecy at City Hall. But I’ll take them along to the radio station. If nothing else happens today and I can't find any news items, I can play these for a laugh.” I looked forward to that; I know almost nothing about Cecil’s life before we met. I asked if I could have a tape to listen to. Cecil shrugged and passed one to me.

I went to my lab wearing Cecil’s shirt, a little distracted by the facts that it was Cecil’s so it smelled of him and it was bright purple. It was a combination that made me happy so I didn’t go up to my apartment to change. I would accept whatever comments came from the postgrads with good grace and wondered if they might not notice. Fat chance. As I walked in Gio put on his sunglasses and I was treated to a volley of whistles. I did a mock curtsey before putting on my lab coat and getting to work analysing the hissy analogue audio from Cecil’s old recording. I converted it to digital format then set about cleaning it up, removing what I could of the background hiss so that I could listen to it properly. I saved it to listen to without interruption between finishing work at the lab and the start of Cecil’s show. I wondered how weird it would feel, listening to my boyfriend when he was a teenager.

I got on with my real work, still analysing energy signals from the dog park and surreptitiously looking for evidence of what the yellow helicopters are doing, but mainly I thought about Cecil. My priorities have changed here. I still have to be reminded occasionally to call him or text if I become absorbed in a project but I am much better at letting the postgrads take over. They are happier too now that I give them more freedom to investigate and experiment as long as they report back to me in full. Gio usually reports back to Ell but she has been at a finance meeting all week. I have not voiced my concerns about our sponsors to Ell. I don’t know how to bring the subject up. At least she has recovered from whatever has been bothering her since the sandstorm and seems more like her old self.

Later, upstairs, I settled down with my laptop and headphones. The recording was… strange. It was Cecil and yet it wasn’t. His voice was lighter, higher, but still his. The way he says “neat” that makes me want to hug him. But _what_ he said was really odd. It can’t have been Cecil. It just can’t, because Cecil is alive.

I listened to his show once the tape finished abruptly. The tape he had taken to play to his listeners appeared to be identical to the one I had. He mentioned the same flickering in the corner of his eye when he was recording. The same development of this feeling into something tangible, being touched. There was evidence that he had interned at the station although he has no memory of it. There were references to a mother and an older brother with hollow eyes whom he does not remember and who disappeared. My Cecil sounded perplexed and concerned by this and for once unsure of what to say. He always knows what to say. Younger-voiced Cecil looking in the mirror, describing flickering movement, noises of choking and a dull thump. Silence. No wonder Cecil destroyed his copy. No wonder he keeps mirrors covered. In my cleaned up version, the sound of younger Cecil presumably being choked to death by whatever caused the flickering were unbearably clear.

I removed the two mirrors from my apartment and drove over to pick Cecil up after his show. He was glad to see me, clearly shaken by the revelations in the tape. I brought him home with me. He talked, we agreed that the tape couldn't have been him. I did not offer any scientific explanation because as yet I have none but I said I would analyse the recording to see if I could find out more about it. Cecil did not want to be left alone even for a moment this evening so he came to the kitchen while I made pasta, we ate then he joined me in the shower, which cheered us both up. As I write this, Cecil is asleep curled up beside me in bed. He looks calm although his eyelids flutter from time to time. I know he doesn't need it, he is a survivor, but I feel protective of him all the same. 


End file.
